Falling into the bloggers’ venue of commenting on every darn thing is not the plan of Brick, but when everyone’s doing it? Topic: The 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner’s keynote address by satirist Stephen Colbert.
I had not been a major fan of the new series The Colbert Report (pronounced unctuously Colbere Rapport), much preferring its older brother The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I get news parodies; I remember Laugh-In’s. But to parody shows I avoid?
The closest I’ve come to those — Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews and Rush Limbaugh — are on Saturday Night Live. But I hit mute on them — because the jokes are as annoying as the originals must be. I have avoided the shouting TV gasbags from the beginning of the founding one, The McLaughlin Group, much preferring Washington Week, where its guests to this day not only speak quietly but report instead of opine. In the months Colbert’s own show has been on, my viewing has expanded from just the first 5 minutes (until Leno-Letterman come on), until this week when I’ve watched the entire half-hour and move to Charlie Rose’s guest hosts. What makes Colbert and his team fine is knowing how to do satire in the 21st century.
The hard thing about satire and humor in general is difficult about lots of writing these days, the perspective of background. You have to first explain what you’re talking about, because the audience is not as well-informed as it used to be (the audience is not stupid; the audience is distracted or the audience has many, many other sources of information. And schools haven’t force-fed mythology or history in ages — what is Achilles’ heel?). Explaining a joke, we humorists insist, risks killing it. Unless you’re very good. Then that’s called “the set-up.” Colbert’s writing team is good, and they were in good but not great form for that dinner. Not all jokes worked. Maybe the whole bit ran too long (20 minutes, sheesh). Colbert tripped over his lines a couple of times, but recovered well enough.
Not all jokes can be set up, or understood by everyone. When you see the transcript you realize how many words fill 20 minutes. It’s like a good madcap movie: You’re not expected to “get” everything, but when so many fly past, just getting some is good enough, and if different folks get different jokes, why that only points to the qualities of the writing. Colbert for example snuck a global warming quip into a jab at Jesse Jackson (why are the conservatives mad when Colbert like all excellent humorists hits everyone?). I caught that one, but the many remarks about the press corps being insular confused my life companion. When I explained the issue, she didn’t care. So it goes.
Clinton laughed even when he was being speared. George I laughed, too, at comparable times. I remember. It’s called “part of the job of being president.” Surely, the laughter was their performance.
My point: Do you really care if D.C. reporters thought Colbert was funny or if George II felt insulted? What matters is that Colbert delivered. If his character portrays a conservative who doesn’t realize he’s contradicting himself or his base — you understood the act (Justice Scalia and some general laughed), then Colbert delivered. -30-
